We Deserve Better from Apple: Why I Can No Longer Recommend a Mac to Fellow Blind Computer Users

I wanted to point to a couple of relevant and useful posts from the Sonoma accessibility blog post comment thread, which has become unwieldy (this one is kinda sprawling, too...O.T.?). See below about sending logs to Apple to report the Safari issue.

Just to note, first, that I must have one of the worst cases out there. I do a lot of rapid-fire Googling and hit this every three or four pages all day, and the freezes have gotten longer and longer. 16Gb RAM M1, latest Ventura. All I can say is, Apple surely must not have any native VO users on their design teams, even if some users have been blessed by the angels and don’t experience the bug. Something that’s worked generally for me is to turn off JavaScript. I rarely get a freeze that way. I have a shortcut to toggle it, so that I can switch it on and reload the page when needed. Cuts the issue down, at least.

Ok, cross-referencing the other blog post, a comment by Adrian Wyka provides Apple’s instructions for sending a big-ass system log package when the problem occurs. But here’s the text of a subsequent comment by Jason White:

While the problem is occurring (e.g., an application is "not responding"), hold down Ctrl-Option-Command-Shift and type a full stop (period) character. The process will take minutes, but in the end, the Finder should be opened with focus on the newly created sysdiagnose file that should be sent to Apple.

Now my questions: can someone who, unlike me, understands these logs confirm that pressing the shortcut while focused on the unresponsive Safari generates the file I should send to Apple? The process does generate a 300-meg log package after a few minutes and focus is placed on it in the Finder. If “yes,” then second, what do we think about log-bombing Apple Accessibility with these until they take it seriously?

I'm really glad to see this appear to take on the feel of a more collective and concentrated call for action.

Every hour or so I’m on this machine, I mentally look at myself askance: “What the hell are you putting up with this for when you have a Windows machine literally two feet away on your desk???” For the record, here’s the oversimplified calculous behind my individual situation. All of these statements will be about usability issues:

• I really hate using Windows much of the time since Windows 8, when they introduced Universal Windows Platform apps (UWPs) and decided pull-down menus were not touch-centric and so replaced them with crap.
• I love, cherish, and adore NVDA and what NV Access stands for (btw, invert those sentiments to describe Freedom Scientific, and I do use JAWS as well). There’s no substitute for a dedicated third-party screen reader. Incidentally, NVDA’s object navigation mirrors that of VO and makes Windows dialog text and the like just as easy to read as on Mac. JAWS lags here.
• I love Mac OS’s simple, old-school, Unix-heritage UI. Mostly, anyway.
• Most of us share feelings that don’t even need to be stated regarding VO on Mac. I’ve come to really like some of its unique approaches, though. The two things that suck with it are text editing and surfing the web, and hey, how often does anybody need to do that, eh?
• I hate, loathe, and despise Microsoft Word and Outlook. I was their slave for 26 years of professional life. I never met anyone who enjoys them except enterprise-level IT departments. But if you are in a work environment that uses them, Mac is not an option: anyone who’s had a good experience with them on Mac doesn’t deeply depend on the advanced features that JAWS and NVDA invest so, so much effort into making work.
• At least for long-form draft writing, Ulysses is the bomb. It’s the only app other than Word on Windows and Pages on Mac that lets a screen reader user jump by headings, which is a litmus test for me. If I weren’t supposedly writing a book, I wouldn’t have Ulysses or a Mac.
• I hate, loathe, and despise the Apple Music app
• Foobar2000 on Windows is the best piece of software ever conceived, at least for those of us with insane (and partially ill-begotten) music collections
• Mac hardware, integration with iPhone
• My current cheap Chinese Windows desktop cannot reboot: I have to physically unplug it and plug it back in. My HP laptop literally started falling apart after two years. Nothing bad to say about Dell XPSes or Thinkpads—nothing particularly great to say, either.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that we have to perform a "full stop" when Safari "full stops" on page load? 😃

Also, Dell + NVDA = Victory!

Voracious P. Brain asked if you can generate a sysdiagnose file while Safari is not responding. The answer is yes. When Safari is not responding, press Control+Option+Command+Shift+Period, and after about three minutes, a finder window will open with your freshly baked sysdiagnose file. Serve with butter and a cup of coffee.

Voracious P. Brain further asked what we thought about bombing Apple with sysdiagnose files. Unless I misunderstood, I believe this is exactly what David Goodwin asked us to do in the original post.

But what's in a sysdiagnose? Web searches turn up pretty vague results. My guess, based on other operating systems I've worked with: Copies of system log files, lists of active processes and their memory ranges, information about each process, such as whether they're blocked and what resources they're using, that type of stuff.

Honestly, though. Apple doesn't need a sysdiagnose to fix this bug. They just need an engineer to look at the interprocess communication handshaking between Webkit and VoiceOver and think real hard about how to avoid any potential deadlocks.

If the folks at NVAccess ever brought NVDA to macOS, I think reality would break. Having said that, I would love to see it happen in my lifetime.

I've been using a Macbook air for many years, simply because i'm using logic as my primary composition platform unless i'm scoring for orchestra in Sibelius, when I use a windows 11 machine, (That, however, comes with it's own sett of major accessibility problems...) I've noticed issues with accessibility in both Windows and Mac alot recently, and I have to say, I don't like it. I know they're under alot of pressure, but it's still something I think needs to be addressed more widely. I also believe app developers should, and could make more of an effort to understand that their shiny graphical interfaces, while they look fantastic, are not always usable for a sub-set of people. Sighted people would throw stuff at me for saying this, but... They could consider it, that's all i'm saying. This issue is deffinatly inherrent on Mac OS, iOS and windows 11. Thank you for someone bringing this up again., it needed to be said. Maybe i'll waite a while on ordering my Macbook air 13 2023 with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD... (Seems 8GB+256SSD isn't enough any more...) PS: Why is it that the Macbook Air can have fantastic sound and non-flexy build, but when you buy a win 11 machine they always add something like Dolby sound assistant, or windows sonic audio for headphones? It's like saying win11s drivers and hardware were never good enough in the first place, because we couldn't be bothered to invest in decent speekers, and internal components so we're going to add junc on top of it which makes it practically useless for mixing and mastering audio...

Use thunderbird for email, it's very accessible.

Outlook on IOS is fine but on windows it's not the best. It's usable but it's clunky.

The problem with laptops is that they probably should be replaced every 3 to 5 years or so, or at least that's what I've heard, I'm not sure about macs.

Personally I'd go with lenovo, I had an all in one PC for a couple years and it worked great. I have a laptop but honestly prefer the pc with it's keyboard so the next time I need a replacement I'll be going back to that.

When generating the sysdiagnose files, do I need to wait for it to generate before command-tabbing back to my regularly-scheduled program, or can I continue with my other work while it's churning? I don't want to waste time sending them files that are muddled by ongoing entries, if it keeps generating those entries after I press the shortcut.

I suspect Apple will just tell me to try upgrading to Sonoma if I emailed them with this now, so I'm chewing on that--in my experience, we're all Apple's unpaid beta testers until version X.3 of Mac or IOS and I've finally learned my lesson.

Disclaimer, I have years of computer experience but I am definitely not an expert on Mac internals.

If you experience Safari not responding, then press VO+Command+Shift+Period, you should probably wait for the Finder window to open with the sysdiagnose file. It should only take a couple of minutes. That's a very good point, thanks for mentioningg it.

I recently opened and examined the contents of a sysdiagnose file. It has a ton of information. I understood almost none of what I was looking at. How long since your last reboot. How many disks you have and how many reads and writes. There was a Safari error log that was empty. And just gobs of other data and log files. Probably very meaningful to the right people.

So I am an advanced-level user of iOS but had never used a Mac. I went to a Mac accessibility training where they had a pile of Macbook Air laptops for us to use. This was their newest model with their newest operating system. I played with VoiceOver for four hours and each time I went in to settings and tried to change things, fumbling around like any beginner, I got the Safari not responding message, even though I was in Settings.
There were plenty of Apple staff there, all sighted, and none of them knew why it was happening.None of them had seen the problem before. I wonder if it has something to do with typing and navigating so quickly that VO just cannot keep up.
I am a long-time JAWS user and it too has gone through many growing pains. Plus the interaction with elements, which seems to confuse Windows users is just like the object navigation in NVDA. Except for this weird bug, my beginner explorations with VoiceOver were very positive.

You do not have to spend as much money on it as you would a mac. Narrator even works great for finding and setting up NVDA. Oh yeah, you can also set up windows using narrator these days.

I think my laptop cost me around £600 and it works for me just fine, granted I mostly just brows the internet and youtube and stuff like that so I'd not need a computer that costs more than £1000 but you can even go for those if you like.

There's way more options in the windows world than there are macs.

I think you have to ask yourself what you'll be doing on the computer and then go from there. I bought my laptop because I wanted to play Diablo 4, but honestly, I would have been fine with my all in one lenovo pc as diablo isn't as accessible as I thought it would be,, although they are working on it and I expect it to be awesome by next year.

I have been having crazy issues and challenges with VoiceOver on my IOS 17.1 device with apps like Shortcuts, Siri Voices, Dictation and other items that don't exactly belong to the accessibility of things. I had one major issue which I reported to that mail id accessibility@apple.com Earlier, they would acknowledge the mail and let me know that if it were an issue they are aware of and they would be working on it and to expect a fix, now they are just mute no replies, acknowledgements etc. I get tired remembering so many action items in a day and don't get me started on the follow ups required on an issue!

I have experienced this problem for a long time and it triggers in a lot of ways. Reporting the problem to the accessibility team and Tim Cook is a good idea but I would also CC several news outlets. Very few people will pay attention until news outlets share this problem with their viewers / readers. The news outlets can apply a lot more pressure than. a few individual reports.

After my MacBook Air became unusable for anything I needed to do, I've stuck to my iPhone and iPad Mini for everything. I'm not wasting my time or money on a new Mac until they've truly fixed the problems.

Dictation works fine for me, what issues are you having with it?

I don't use siri as a voiceover voice so can't help there and don't use shortcuts at all.

I thought I'd weigh in here on all of these wonderful comments. Let me give you some background about myself first. I have my B.S. in Music with a concentration in Audio Production and a minor in Communications. My college uses Macs for all recording work, (I'm assuming this still is the case. I graduated 6 years ago.) Anyways, I could also see a lot better to use screen magnification to get around a Mac. I didn't have to rely on VoiceOver to get things done. I'm not even sure if PT was accessible with VoiceOver back than either.

Recently within the last 4 years I've lost a majority of any usable vision. I knew enough to use a screen reader and now had to actually use one full time. I've always had my foot in both camps because why not, best of both worlds eh. Well, at least that's what I told myself. During the pandemic I decided to get a Mac and learn it. Needless to say I returned it within the given return window. While VoiceOver does have some awesome feeling hardware and great audio codecs. Two weeks was enough time for me an experienced computer user and accessibility consultant to return the machine. Windows is were most professionals outside of any creative career are purched upon Microsoft's branch. From an accessibility point of view, Apple's iOS and mobilie device department are top notch the best. Android can't catch up to them unless a major shift where to happen over at Google. Let's face it though Google, throws so much at the wall and recalls products faster than the FDA pulls product from grocery stores. What will make a shift I believe is AI and language models for Google. Anyhow back on track here, VoiceOver on the Mac side of the house for Apple. Wel, there's no other way to say this. Apple it's a complete mess this software of yours. I can get behind object navigation and grouping nested elements together. I can also get behind a closed ecosystem. However, when it takes me twice as long to write a accessibility summary for a client on a Mac because of Word not playing nice. Better yet Pages doesn't even tell me what I've selected and getting to anything in terms of formatting a document, forget it. Productivity and efficiency are key to me. I can't be wasting time.

It's honestly a shame folks. As an ccessibility Consultant, I know that accessibility takes time. There are many different variables and conditions and users. However, when you put a serious issue out to the accessibility help desk. Get told your bug hasn't been filled by other uses so it's not a big deal. Not to mention the representtative saing that the Braille display is the guilty party. That makes not only people like me who fight for accessibility to be a human right look bad. It makes Apple the company look even worse. It's an oversight on Apple's side I believe. Apple can talk a good game, I just bought an iPhone 155 pro. I want to be all in on the Apple ecosystem. One platform to orule them all. However, because I have a disability my experience as an everyday user is deminished and dehumanized because of my disability. I'm relating to the medical model of disability. Which looks at the disability as something that needs to be cured. Basically Apple is saying, "it's the fact that you're blind our computers don't work for you. Don't blame our computers they've never done anyting wrong. Don't like it then go somewhere else." This type of passive aggressive attitude gets nowhere for any company. Honestly, if android wasn't such a mess and Be My AI and SoundScape came to the platform. I'd never return to Apple. Until a true written commitment to communiccate with all users with disabilities and long standing bugs were solved with all platforms. Sometimes a company gets so big that they loose sight and vision of why they exist. In some respects, I think Apple has done this in some departments. Unfortunately, one of the biggest minority departments happens to be accessibility. Not just for blind or low vision users but for all users with disabilities.

On Ventura 13.6, I encountered Safari Not Responding pretty much every time I went to a website. But after upgrading to Sonoma 14.1, I didn't encounter the issue at all.

I've now downgraded to Ventura 13.6.1 and I'm seeing it much less than I remember with 13.6.

Has anyone else noticed much less Safari Not Responding in 13.6.1? My Safari Version: 16.6 (18615.3.12.11.2)

I would also be interested in getting a Safari version from those of you on Sonoma.

I also don't experience this issue consistently or regularly on Sonoma, version 14.1.1 (23B81) and Safari 17.1 (19616.2.9.11.7.)

Mr Cook and Company,

I am writing you this note detailing the ongoing issues with safari going busy while VoiceOver is in operation. In fact, this has been a known bug since the company switched to the intel architecture from the old power PC units after 2008. This “busy bug” has also affected many of the other apps that use webkit. As a result, I end up with a Mac mini that only functions some 30% of the time. The rest I am forced to have to wait until safari (or any other affected app) to come back from being busy. You would think that after 16 years, someone there at apple would have fixed this bug. Addd to this the insult of virtually every blind person paying the same prices for the same equipment as any sighted person and you begin to see how it is that we blind are being left out in the cold. This goes against everything in your inclusiveness and equity statements over the last few years and most definitely goes against anything that Steve Jobs wanted for his company, especially after he was passed on. Ever since his death, Apple has changed and not much for the better.

Now, I can’t see my way clear to paying for another machine (at $700 or more) unless something is done about this. Many other blind apple users (on AppleVis and many mailing lists) are starting to have the same opinion.

Now, all of this adds up to one thing: we, the blind, are being left out in the cold again simply because someone (like the entire engineering team) decided it wasn’t worth the effort to solve this one bug. Not to mention all the wasted hours and lost productivity on the part of blind workers and business owners. The optics on this certainly do not look good for apple (and in particular, you). You would figure after 16 years and many innumerable crash reports submitted that someone would have solved this. I have to ask, sir, why should I spend money on a device if it isn’t going to work correctly from day one? Right now, I am typing this on a 2012 Mac mini using Catalina and I don’t have the funds to upgrade the hardware. Without that upgrade, I will be unable to do online banking (requires a newer browser than is currently supported on my hardware), unable to peruse many information sites simply because safari (and other apps) tend to go busy, sometimes to the point of crashing the entire machine. Now, the lawyer that you were should be thinking about this and how it relates to warrantees against defects in mnufacturing, etc. You really should think about that and what it could mean if someone got an idea (and no, I am not suggesting it for myself). Now, I am a loyal customer, but I do have limits and they have been reached.

So, when are you going to task the engineers and software specialists to get on with it and correct this issue? It’s already costing me more than I can afford. As it is, I might have to go with a standard PC laptop and install Linux on it (windows has even worse issues than your company’s operating system). Now, there are some things that apple does very well, but because of the issues, I am forced to look elsewhere to get things done (and I am not the only one). There are a great many of us who are thinking the same thing (if this thread seems to indicate: https://www.applevis.com/blog/we-deserve-better-apple-why-i-can-no-longer-recommend-mac-fellow-blind-computer-users ). So, the lack of action on this point is already starting to hit home. So, do you *really* want to lose a loyal customer base because of this?

Cordially,

Eric Oyen

* just a note to our readers here, you may have noticed that I missed a couple of spelling errors. This is what happens when you fat finger at the keyboard and not have the spellchecker catch it. I did try to keep it as professional as possible.

Snow levered. Remember that OS? That was the most stable version of the mac I think I ever came across in my opinion. If it can have that much of a stable OS, why can't we get the same now? When Steve passed and Tim took over, apple hit the fan hard and not in a good way either. This is one of the reasons why I won't be gettin' a new mac either until stuff gets fixed and I don't ever think they will. Something needs to be done bout this. If we're paying the same price for a mac or phone or what have you, you better believe we better be gettin' the same treatment as sited people and so far, on mac as of late, that hasn't been the case! Look... VO needs a makeover on both mac and IOS, I think. mac and VO is only using one core? That's insane! It's 2024 and some of these bugs have been round for a vary long time and engineers done nothing to fix some of said bugs... Get it together!!! Apple, do better! Where's your vision for accessibility? Yep, you talk the talk but don't walk the walk!

The root issue in the entire company boils down to the people in charge. That's not changing until these people are replaced by better folks that aren't extremely greedy and narcissistic. Unfortunately, I don't expect that to ever happen, particularly if they're recruiting from within. I'm always happy to be proven wrong, but I expect future executives to be just as bad as the current crew.

If you see my message on mac vs windows debate, I had notification center does not respond, pages does not respond (with a blanck document!), voiceover utility does not respond, system settings does not respond, and the latest as of writing this after fresh full reboot, login window does not respond. It's not even a pure voiceover problem, the accessibility api gets busy too much, and the theory on the topic about arrow keys becoming unresponsive or unreliable seems to have about the same infrastructure problem which in turn poisons voiceover as a whole. This is completly unprofessional from a company who doesn't acknowledge how their software is poorly made / can no longer follow the system updates since the core of voiceover was first written. Terminal, calculator, text editing in general,... are a horrible experience to do on mac and in one year I haven't seen any improvement, except **for me** snr becoming just slightly less of a problem as my gmail inbox (100 messages per page) can properly load on safari and chrome and voiceover is still somehow alive (what a miracle!). Voiceover and safari, you can 2/3 times indefenitly interact within text fields and that's why one of the reason why misspelled doesn't work, like most of the rotor things that are reliable on ios but not on mac. Think of paragraph rotor in books which closes what you're reading back to book home screen, or in pages the rotor partially rebooting voiceover when looking for elements... This pile of bugs is wwhat we have to deal with, and much much more. Of course I can still do basic text editing in text edit, and code editing in vscode is somehow doable, but overall I feel so so much more limitted, and having an mbp (m2 pro base model) just makes it feel worst.